


No One's Charity Case

by TuppingLiberty



Series: As the Universe Wills It - Force Husbands [7]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Emergency room, Hospital, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-26
Updated: 2017-04-26
Packaged: 2018-10-23 04:03:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10711806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TuppingLiberty/pseuds/TuppingLiberty
Summary: Chirrut is injured at work, and it shakes Baze.Day 3 of Spiritassassin Week: Hurt/Comfort





	No One's Charity Case

**2014**

Baze glanced down at his ringing cell phone, his hands covered in clay - well, his hands, his face, his hair, his clothes...he’d been throwing since early morning for a huge order - saw that it was the museum, not Chirrut’s personal number, but museum security. He hemmed for a second before stopping his wheel, wiping his hand on his pants, and hitting speaker phone. “Yeah?” he grumbled as he started the machine again.

“Baze?”

Baze perked up, glancing sharply at his phone and ruining the shape of his bowl. It was the always-anxious voice of Bodhi Rook, the man he’d trained personally as the head of museum security several years before, and someone he and Chirrut considered a close friend. Completely competent even if he always sounded hesitant, that was just one of Bodhi’s quirks. This time, though, Bodhi sounded just a little more anxious than normal. “This is Baze. What do you need, Rook?”

“It’s Chirrut, man. Um.” Bodhi hesitated, and in that second, Baze’s heart stopped. “He’s headed to the hospital, he fell, and-”

“What hospital?” Baze was already wiping off his hands as best he could and snatching his phone and his car keys.

\-------------

“Stop poking me!” Chirrut’s voice was belligerent, and the sound of it coming through the curtains soothed some of Baze’s anxiety. “At least warn a guy, won’t you? Did you notice I'm blind?”

Baze held his breath as he pulled back the curtain. Chirrut was lying back on the gurney, looking pale and sweaty. Baze could see tear tracks on Chirrut’s face, and his heart broke into pieces. He cleared his throat, and Chirrut focused over at him. “Baze, get them to stop poking me.”

“I’m just trying to find a vein for pain meds,” the harried nurse muttered. “I don’t know why, he won’t even tell us a pain level.”

Chirrut’s left arm was wrapped in a brace, so Baze came to his right side and slid their fingers together. “Give us a second?” Baze murmured to the nurse.

She huffed, snapping the rubber hose off efficiently. “We’ll be taking him for x-rays soon.”

Baze nodded his assent. He squeezed Chirrut’s fingers, felt Chirrut’s squeeze back weakly. “ _Lăo gong,_ you don’t look so good.”

Chirrut managed a watery smile for him. “Some piece of _lā shǐ_ left some crate or something right at shin level. I should have fallen correctly, but my right hand was full, and I leaned out to brace myself-” Chirrut’s fingers fisted into Baze’s. “Idiot. Idiot. I know how to fall.”

Baze swept over Chirrut’s tear tracks with his free hand. Lines of pain were etched around Chirrut’s mouth. _So fucking - idiotically - stoic._ “The pain meds would help, Chirrut.”

Chirrut’s lower lip trembled. “I know, just-” he sighed, leaning into Baze’s hand, grimacing. “I know.” He sniffed at Baze. “You were throwing. You had to get a big order done today, and now they called you - who was it, Bodhi? - and wasted your time.”

Baze leaned over and brushed his lips over Chirrut’s forehead. “Not a waste of time, _lăo gong._ ”

The nurse came into their space again. “Okay, time for x-ray, Mr. Îmwe. Sorry, sir, you’ll have to wait here.”

Baze nodded, trying to find some place to be out of the way, although he often had a hard time being out of the way. He let himself calm, ran through the breathing exercises Chirrut was so fond of. It was okay. Chirrut was going to be okay. Chirrut wasn’t- wasn’t leaving him.

\------------------

Fractured radial head, the one in the elbow. He’d broken it in two when his elbow had dislocated. Would require surgery, and Chirrut already had an appointment to meet with the surgeon in a week or so, when the swelling would have reduced a bit.

He’d insisted on walking out of the ER on his own two feet, with his arm wrapped up in a brace and his cane in his hand. He’d refused help from the hospital staff and Baze.

The drive home was quiet. Baze was grateful that Chirrut was okay, and Chirrut - well, Baze was pretty sure Chirrut was going to a bad place in his head, and he seemed powerless to stop it. Not that he wasn’t going to try.

“How’s your stomach?” The pain meds had made Chirrut throw up in the ER. “I could stop by Bao’s, pick up some soup?”

Chirrut, whose head was resting on the seat, the picture of exhaustion, just shrugged. Baze chewed his lip, and made the executive decision to drive them home. When they arrived, he hurried around the side of the car to help Chirrut out, but Chirrut was already groaning and pulling himself out of his seat. He tilted precipitously, and Baze reached for him, but he righted himself without Baze’s help and started making his way to the house. Baze’s hands clenched at his sides, useless, and he pushed the car door closed and followed.

Chirrut used his key fob to get him in the door, touching the lock so it opened automatically. Without another word to Baze, he walked slowly to the bedroom and collapsed backwards onto the bed. As Baze watched, he hissed in pain and sat up again. “I’m sleeping in the recliner,” he grumbled, pushing past Baze.

Baze tried not to be upset. Chirrut had pride the size of Seattle itself, and it had been stung badly today. He could let Chirrut mope for a bit.

Instead, he took himself to his shed and called to berate Bodhi.

\------------------

Chirrut continued to push Baze away, and the common refrain of “ _I_ can do it!” was heard throughout the house. It didn’t help that dealing with the workman’s comp paperwork brought the whole incident up again, or the fact that Chirrut had been forced home for a few days to recover.

“I’m _fine!_ ” was another common phrase.

Baze mostly retreated to his shed, or to his home office to work on security details. A few days after the accident, though, he was just coming from his office to the kitchen to make them both lunch when he heard a crash. He rushed to the living room, where Chirrut was on the floor, pain etched over his face. It was obvious he’d been working through some of his forms. Frustrated, Baze gently scooped Chirrut up off the floor and sat them both in the recliner.

Chirrut squirmed. “I’m _fine!”_ he muttered with force, attempting to get out of Baze’s arms.

Baze let him go, rubbing his hand over his face. When he spoke, his voice was rough with tears. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Chirrut paused halfway up from his lap. “Baze?”

Something inside Baze broke, but he shook his head, shoved it back inside him like he had been for days.

“Baze.”

The steady insistence in Chirrut’s voice prodded the wound open. “You’re not _fine._ You got _hurt_ , Chirrut. I- you- the hospital. What if it had been worse? What if- what if you-”

\-------------

Chirrut didn’t need to pay a psychiatrist to tell him he used humor and bravado to cover up a startlingly large amount of insecurity brought on by his lack of sight - or he didn’t need to pay _another_ psychiatrist anyway. Not that _he’d_ paid the psychiatrist back when the guy had made the diagnosis when he was in second grade. Chirrut had simply clenched his fist, set his teeth, and determined to work even harder on honing his other senses to make up for his sight. He hadn’t let his mother coddle him, had insisted on competing in martial arts like the other kids, had never wanted a seeing eye dog. He became an expert with his cane, with memorizing vast maps of steps and stairs and uneven cement. Sure, he tripped, plenty of times he tripped, but he’d built up a vast amount of self-reliance there, as well, always brushing off bruises and pushing away helpful hands. Chirrut was no one’s charity case. By the time he was 15, he was pulling off his ‘tricks’ - identifying people by their footfall, their smell, freaking them out when he greeted them without their speaking first. It always made a little fire blaze inside him to catch people like that.

There was only one person he had ever, _ever_ assented to help from, without feeling like a blind fool: Baze Malbus.

Not often would he take Baze’s arm, but when he did, he knew Baze would not only lead him faithfully, but never judge him for it. On Baze’s arm, Chirrut could get a little tipsy on sake, and he knew Baze would get him home safe anyway. With Baze as his eyes, he knew their home would always be safe for him, as safe as when he’d lived alone. And oh, my, how Chirrut had been terrified at first to live with another human again, another person who might set something down in his path and forget about it. But Baze was always considerate, and never made Chirrut feel like he was asking too much. By the time they’d bought a house together and wore each other’s rings, Chirrut no longer questioned how the universe had served up the perfect man for him, he was just grateful.

“You’re not _fine._ You got _hurt_ , Chirrut. I- you- the hospital. What if it had been worse? What if- what if you-”

Chirrut leaned forward, drawing Baze’s forehead to his with his good hand. “I’m sorry, _lăo gong._ I’m not going anywhere, I promise.”

Baze shuddered beneath him, and how had he not seen that he’d been hurting Baze, acting as he did?

“I’m sorry I didn’t catch myself, that you had to see me hurt.”

“Chir-” Baze’s voice was full of censure. “This wasn’t your fau-”

“That’s what people are going to think, though. They’re going to look at me and see an old blind fool who hurt himself.”

“Chirrut,” Baze murmured, capturing his face in his hands.

It was the absolute tenderness in Baze’s voice that undid him. He collapsed in Baze’s arms. “I’m sorry,” he murmured again.

“You’re not an old, blind fool. I’m the one that has to wear reading glasses, right?”

Chirrut shook a little in mirth. “You’re awful.”

“Yeah, that’s the _fool_ part.”

Chirrut shook his head against Baze’s chest.

“No one thinks you’re a fool, _lăo gong._ Accidents happen. Weren’t you telling me a few months ago about the intern that dropped the priceless Joe painting on his foot?”

“Shen Zhou,” Chirrut corrected automatically. The fingers of his good hand crawled behind to the back of Baze’s neck to find the braille message just for him. “I have to be better than that. I have to prove I’m better than- better than normal people.”

“Super human?”

Chirrut groused against Baze’s shirt. “Maybe,” he finally admitted.

“Believe me, Chirrut. You have everyone in awe. This barely dented your reputation as mystical Asian badass.” Baze swept over Chirrut’s hair and kissed his temple. “Although maybe it reminded your husband just how mortal you are.”

“Nonsense. We’re going to live forever, you and I.”

He felt Baze’s smile against his forehead.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a story for every day of spiritassassin week for these two!
> 
> I'm @animalasaysrauer on tumblr
> 
> Leave me kudos and comments please, they are my life blood


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